This invention relates to a palletizer for articles, in particular for light unstable plastic bottles, having a neck provided with a collar by which they are manipulated by suspension.
Palletizers of this type are known comprising a loader carriage provided with a plurality of parallel horizontal corridors for receiving the articles, and a movable transfer head for withdrawing the articles from the loader carriage from above and transferring them together to the next station.
An object of this invention is to improve the known machines, in particular with the aim of:
intrinsically shortening the machine operating cycles by reducing idle times;
simplifying the adjustment of the bottle guide members when the neck diameter changes;
providing transfer heads in which the gripping means are closer together.
This and other objects are attained by the invention as characterised in the claims.
The invention is based on the fact that each horizontal corridor comprises:
a pair of guides enabling the articles, suspended by their collar, to slide along the entire corridor,
means for moving the guides into a position of mutual approach, in which the guides enable the articles to slide, and vice versa into a position of mutual withdrawal, in which the guides lie at a distance apart such as to release the collar of the articles,
a pair of side walls positioned externally to the pair of guides, to lock the articles along the entire length of the corridor, and
means for moving the side walls into a position of mutual approach, in which the side walls lock the position of the articles lying within the corridor, and vice versa into a position of mutual withdrawal, in which the side walls are at such a distance apart as not to interfere with the movement of the articles along the corridor.
Moreover, during the loading of the articles into the loader carriage the slide guides are maintained in their position of mutual approach, and the locking side walls are maintained in their mutually withdrawn position, and during the withdrawal of the articles by the transfer head the slide guides are moved into their mutually withdrawn position and the locking side walls are made to approach each other to lock the articles in position; finally, said gripping means of the transfer head are made to penetrate from above, through the top of the corridors, between the pair of upper guides arranged in their mutually withdrawn position, to grip the articles by their collars.